"But you have not had such an awful blow as poor Margaret had," said Annie. Then she brightened. "Oh Alice," she cried, "I wanted somebody who loved me to be glad." "You have not told your grandmother and aunts yet?" "I have not dared," replied Annie in a shamed fashion. "I know I deceived them and I think perhaps grandmother might find it hard not to tell. She is so old you know, and she does tell a great deal without meaning and Aunt Susan likes to tell news. I have not dared, Alice. The publishers have been so very insistent that nobody should know, but I had to tell you and Margaret." "It made no difference anyway about me," said Alice, "since I already knew." "Margaret can be trusted too, I am sure," Annie said quickly. "Of course." Annie looked at her watch. "I must go," she said, "or I shall be late. Isn't it really wonderful that I should write a successful book, Alice?" "You are rather wonderful, my dear," said Alice. Then she rose and put her arms around the slender white-clad figure and held her close, and gave her one of her infrequent kisses. "You precious little thing," she said, "the book is wonderful, but my Annie is more wonderful because she can be told so and never get the fact into her head. Here is your work, dear." An expression of dismay came over Annie's face. "Oh, dear," she said, "I have only embroidered half a daisy and what will Aunt Harriet say?" "You have embroidered a whole garden as nobody else can, if people only knew it," said Alice. "But Alice," said Annie ruefully, "my embroidery is really awful and I don't like to do it and the linen is so grimy that I am ashamed. Oh, dear, I shall have to face Aunt Harriet with that half daisy!" Alice laughed. "She can't kill you." "No, but I don't like to have her so disappointed." Alice kissed Annie again before she went, and watched the slight figure flitting down between the box-rows, with a little frown of perplexity. She wished that Annie had not told Margaret Edes about the book and yet she did not know why she wished so. She was very far from expecting the results. Alice was too noble herself to entertain suspicions of the ignobility of others. Certainty she was obliged to confront, as she had confronted the affair of the night before. It was, of course, the certainty that Margaret had been guilty of a disgraceful and treacherous deed which made her uneasy in a vague fashion now and yet she did not for one second dream of what was to occur at the next meeting of the Zenith Club.